THEATERLAB PRESENTS
score for trees
a new work by Maria Takeuchi
score for trees is an interdisciplinary composition that translates the physical structures and growth patterns of New York City trees into live performance.
Using photogrammetry, Maria Takeuchi captures the three dimensional growth patterns of a single tree in Prospect Park, Brooklyn (40.6670809, -73.9694442). Each point in this spatial data is translated into shifts in frequency and textural abstraction, becoming the raw material for a graphic score. Branch structures become notational shapes that inspire sound texture and frequency, estimated growth year duration becomes the piece’s compositional time structure, and branch thickness informs tonal choices in the instrumentation.
The tree at the center of the piece has its own story. Over months of observation, several of its large branches came down in a storm, a quiet reminder of impermanence and of how quickly what takes decades to grow can change in a moment. To notate a growing tree is to notate something already in the process of decaying, its growth and entropy in constant, inseparable transformation.
Rooted in the philosophy of ancient Japanese gagaku, music composed for and inspired by nature, score for trees creates an abstract translation between tree ecology and sound.
The graphic notation is composed by Maria Takeuchi, who invited a group of collaborators to interpret the score and bring it into sound together. Nava Dunkelman performs percussion, Henry Fraser contrabass, rocío sánchez cello, and che ali violin, each artist reading the score’s shapes and durations through their own instrument and sensibility. Takeuchi performs electronics and generative visuals, drawing the ensemble’s interpretations into a shared, evolving image of the tree.
This project is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) through the Support for Artists Grant.
PERFORMANCES
Friday, September 11th @ 7:30pm
Saturday, September 12th @ 7:30pm
Run Time – 60mins
TICKETS
Please make your purchase according your needs.
MEET THE ARTISTS
MARIA TAKEUCHI (Creator, Electronics, and Visuals)
ÉMU aka Maria Takeuchi is a composer and audiovisual artist who creates sonic and visual poems, merging organismic soundscapes with generative art and illuminating objects inspired by nature. Maria plays and conducts the sound-objects with a delicate yet intentional focus. The subtle sound, textures created by water, dry leaves, and shells on the handmade primitive instruments, processed with modular synthesizers for added aesthetic atmosphere. Maria co-directed and composed music for a collaborative experimental short film as·phyx·i·a (2015) using motion-captured sensors created with Frederico Phillips, performed by Shiho Tanaka. The work was selected as a New Directors Shortlist by Saatchi & Saatchi, showcased at Cannes Lions and MoMA. It appeared on nearly 200 international mediums, including BBC Newsnight, Canadian Daily Planet, TIME, and Microsoft commercials.
CHE ALI (Violin)
che ali is an experimental interdisciplinary artist based in new york city. che primarily performs and creates music as a violinist and composer while also integrating objects, voice, movement, and poetry. their practice often deals with themes of memory, place, the quotidian, exploring humaness through a somatic lens and in dialogue with poetic possibility and conceptual inquiry. their work is deeply interested in the exposure of timbral details, resonance, introspection, interiority, and starkness, realized through improvisational performance, acoustic and electroacoustic sound worlds. che has collaborated with artists including Adama Delphine Fawundu, Deborah Jack, Torsten Lang, Dafna Naphtali & James Ilgenfritz. They have received commissions from Midori, The Museum of Modern Art, icarus Quartet, Castle of our Skins, Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy, and others. che holds a bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the boston conservatory at berklee. they are currently a DMA candidate at columbia university in music composition, where they’ve studied with Marcos Balter, George Lewis, Zosha Di Castri, and Georg Friedrich Haas. in their free time, che enjoys taking long walks, eating and cooking plant based food, thrifting, and traveling.
HENRY FRASER (Contrabass)
Born in Boston in 1991, double bassist and composer Henry Fraser moved to New York City in 2014 and has since developed a wide-ranging practice rooted in improvisation and collaboration. He has worked with artists including Ka Baird, John Zorn, Uniform, Mary Halvorson, Randall Dunn, and Joey Arias, and has performed internationally at venues and festivals such as Unsound Festival, The National Concert Hall of Ireland, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center. Fraser’s work often begins with raw sonic materials that evolve through collaboration and engagement with a wide spectrum of musical forms—frequently communal, ceremonial, psychedelic, or devotional in character. His approach treats improvisation as a flexible framework through which these forms can be explored, placing emphasis on the personal histories and relationships that shape the music. Since 2019, Fraser has focused intensively on solo music for the double bass, developing a distinctive practice centered on resonance, physical gesture, and extended acoustic inquiry. Across a series of recordings and performances, he has emerged as a compelling voice among a new generation of bassists expanding the instrument’s solo possibilities. His latest solo album, Pneuma, was released by Kou Records in June 2026. Fraser has been selected as a fellow for the Art OMI Music Residency (2021), was named a NYSCA/NYFA Finalist in Music/Sound (2022), has held residencies at Pioneer Works and The Stone (both 2025), and his work has been featured in Rolling Stone and The Wire. In 2023 he joined Carnegie Hall’s Future Music Project as a Teaching Artist, leading music workshops with incarcerated youth in New York City.
Photo by Ksenia Howalt
NAVA DUNKELMAN (Percussion)
Nava Dunkelman is a percussionist and improviser based in Brooklyn, NY. Born in Tokyo, Japan and raised in a multi-cultural environment by an American father and Indonesian mother. Her musical approach is innovative and dynamic, combining virtuosity and intuition. Meticulous in an intrinsic way, she uses her distinctive sound palette to explore and give life to a vast spectrum of musical possibilities. Nava’s current projects are electro-percussion experimental noise duo IMA with Amma Ateria, and percussion duo NOMON with her sister Shayna Dunkelman. She also has performed and collaborated with Angélica Negrón, Brandon Seabrook, Du Yun, ÉMU (Maria Takeuchi), Fred Frith, gabby fluke-mogul, Ikue Mori, John Zorn, Pauchi Sasaki, William Winant, yuniya edi kwon, and many others. She has performed classical and contemporary pieces with the William Winant Percussion Group, Joan Jeanrenaud, Raven Chacon, San Francisco Girls Chorus, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and others. Her work has been recognized through notable awards and residencies, including Civitella Ranieri Music Fellowship (2026), Jerome Artist Residency (2024–2025) and Jerome Commission at Roulette (2023–2024), Hermitage Artist Retreat (2025), Loghaven Artist Residency (2024), create Award with the American Composers Forum (2023), and New Music USA Creator Development Fund (2022).
ROCÍO SÁNCHEZ (Cello)
rocío sánchez is a mexican composer, performer, and educator whose work bridges improvisation, field recordings, virtual animation, and collage. Their music explores the rich sonority of the cello, aiming to expand the instrument’s color by preparing it with recycled materials. sánchez’s sound world spans from the manipulation of the prepared cello, adapting it into a unique instrument that morphs throughout the performance—from soft kalimba-like tones to static, roaring wails created through the manipulation of VHS tape. Their work has been presented at Klangspuren Festival (AT), the Darmstadt Summer Courses (DE), Red de Ecología Acústica de México (MX), Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC RPI), Carnegie Hall, Roulette Intermedium, The Jazz Gallery, ISSUE Project Roome, Americas Society/Council of the Americas, and The P.I.T. (Property Is Theft, NYC), among others. They have also been a visiting artist at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of California San Diego where they have premiered solo and ensemble programs. sánchez is based in Lenapehoking (New York City), upcoming recording projects include a collaborative trio with Laura Cocks and Kenneth Jiménez “Ghost Orchid” and a cello solo album.
Photo by Jonathan Maier for Teddy Cruz_Fonna Forman Studio
ALEC FELLMAN (Sound Engineer)
Alec Fellman is a sound artist, audio engineer, and composer based in Brooklyn, New York. Since 2010, he has worked for Ryuichi Sakamoto’s management team, KAB America Inc., as an office manager, assistant engineer, and production manager, working closely with Sakamoto across albums, film scores, installations, and live performances. Under the name insomniac hotel, Alec creates music from modular synthesizers, field recordings, and various instruments and objects. These sonic landscapes become spaces unto themselves to think, feel, and listen. With Maria Takeuchi (ÉMU), he is one half of MA, a collaborative sound project exploring the concept of 間 through improvised performance with non-traditional instruments and objects.
COVID-19 policy: In guidance with the city and state COVID-19 policies, we will no longer be requiring masks, but strongly recommend them.